That's correct. Major victory! Congratulations!

Thought not.

Moreover, why should I be prohibited from making a better living because I work hard, smart and add real value to my employer's bottom line? That's the agreement you make with a business when you take a job...fair pay for fair work. (The idea that a business makes money is the POINT of business, by the way.) A Union contract makes room for the person working next to me to ride on his/her union protected wage (which in a union environment, given time in job/job title being equal would be identical) without having to be a top performer. Pay for performance, self-representation...nobody can earn a better living for me than I can earn for myself.

oops - double post

There is a kernel of truth in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s claim of a “budget shortfall” of $137 million. But Walker, a Republican, failed to tell the state that less than two weeks into his term as governor, he, with his swollen Republican majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature, pushed through $117 million in tax breaks for business allies of the GOP. There is your crisis.

The state Legislature’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau—Wisconsin’s equivalent of the Congressional Budget Office and a refuge for professional expertise and nonpartisanship—warned Walker and the Legislature that the measure would create a budget gap. There is your shortfall—and not one resulting from established public employee benefits. Before the tax giveaways, the fiscal agency predicted a surplus for the state.

Now the governor has offered a proposal simple and clear in its intent, and patently dishonest. Walker wants state workers to contribute to their pension fund and is calling for an increase in their payments for medical insurance. Make no mistake: The governor’s “budget repair bill” has little to do with a budget shortfall and everything to do with breaking unions, starting with public employees and then perhaps moving on to others as well.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/21-6

Who is preventing you from doing this?

No one...that's the point. I'm self-represented so I'm not bound by a contract rate of pay that everyone else with my job title and tenure also gets. I can negotiate a higher wage based on my productivity and the comparative advantage I bring to my employer.

So here's a reality check question (this is dependent on the fact that you actually know what the right to work bill is about.)

If Unions are so great, and they do so much good...why should they be threatened by an employee's option to choose to belong? What employee faced with all the negative things a union says would happen without their contract (poor work conditions, pay, benefits, etc) would fail to belong to the union? The fact that unions want to uphold a REQUIREMENT that employees be members/pay dues seems like a glaring admission that they aren't attractive enough to stand on their own merit.

There is more than a 'kernal' of truth in the budget shortfall...

It was projected (when the former Democratic governer wanted to increase taxes) that the budgetary shortfall would be 3.7 BILLION by end of 2011.

Now that a Republican governor is in charge that number magically changes.

Legislative Fiscal Bureau of Wisconsin is staffed by Union members (It is the staff, not the chair sitters that do all the prep work)... Ever wonder why FDR did not think Public Employee Unions should have any sway in governmental jobs...

This is a good example.

fits the other big example this year... Lack of snow clearing in a bad storm when Union's are upset about things.

An unfortunate thing about all 22 right-to-work states is that unions are required to represent the interests of scabs, just as though they had paid their fair share of the expenses of providing that representation. Never seemed right to me. If I were still a union official, I would be happy to have you bargain for your own interests with the employer. It would be only reluctantly that I would be willing to help you with that.